


Five Times Bill and Laura Lived A Little, and One Time After

by misscam



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-07
Updated: 2009-05-07
Packaged: 2017-10-17 12:45:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misscam/pseuds/misscam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura and Bill, living a little. He doesn't think it will quite last. [Adama/Roslin]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Bill and Laura Lived A Little, and One Time After

**Author's Note:**

> Through season three and four, spoilers fairly vague. Thanks to **lyricalviolet** for beta. For [](http://community.livejournal.com/adama_roslin/profile)[**adama_roslin**](http://community.livejournal.com/adama_roslin/)'s Month of Love.

Five Times Bill and Laura Lived A Little, and One Time After  
by **misscam**

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.

II

 _New Caprica, one night_

Her head on his shoulder, she sleeps lightly. Sometimes, she opens her eyes a little, blinks sleepily, breathes and drifts off again. Her fingers move a little across his chest, patterns as caresses, and one foot have slipped casually over his.

Draped in Laura, he thinks in the part of him that isn't quite sober. She's as warm as a blanket and smells nicer, and the sound of her sleeping is strangely comforting.

It would make a good lullaby to fall asleep to every night for the rest of his life, he thinks, and lets the thought linger for once. She isn't the President anymore. He might still be the Admiral, but tonight he simply feels like Bill to her Laura. This is New Caprica - new planet, new go, new chances. (Even if it is with Baltar in charge.)

New. It doesn't make him feel young, but it doesn't make him wish he was either. Doesn't have to be young to enjoy something new, he knows, and Laura makes a sound low in her throat when he moves the hand casually resting at the small of her back.

She is thinking of making a cabin, she told him. He is thinking about visiting her there. Bring her books, accept drinks and dinner. Chat into the later hours, find it too late to leave that evening. Kiss her. Be kissed. Find she only has one bed, but one bed enough.

Wake up draped in her, and he already knows how that feels.

"What are you thinking about, Bill?" Laura asks, and he tilts his head to see her looking at him, eyes half-closed and her expression so peaceful.

"The future," he says.

Maybe it comes with a chance at life.

II

 _Colonial One, a meeting_

Laura is angry. He's known since the moment he walked in and saw the lines in her body, as he's long since learned to read them.

It's strange how few words they need at times.

"Frakking Gaius Baltar," Laura says, voice dripping with venom as she paces a little. "Why didn't you talk me into making him disappear?"

"I never talk you into anything," he says calmly, and the curve in her shoulders relaxes a little.

"You should," she says, and he isn't sure if it's an invitation or a challenge. "Bill, people are actually listening to him, and with this trial, he might gain even more of an audience."

"He might also be revealed for what he is," he suggests. She considers that for a moment and then exhales, leaning a little against her desk.

"I don't know why he gets to me," she says, then shakes her a head a little. "No, I do."

She does, he thinks. She is the President for the Fleet at the cost of herself. Baltar is himself at the cost at everything else.

He doesn't say anything, and after a moment she shrugs and focuses on him. Her eyes soften and her smile is genuine, and he can read the lines of that too.

It always feels so strangely personal, even in the midst of professional duties. Bill and Laura a little inbetween the President and the Admiral.

"What did you come to see me about?"

"I just came to see you, Laura," he says, and her smile doesn't falter as she walks up to him.

II

 _The Admiral's quarters, one evening_

Her fingers are cold, he thinks, feeling almost lifeless. He doesn't want to think about what she's told him, and what Doc Cottle has told her and what the Fleet will have to be told about sooner or later.

That her cancer returned he can't do anything about. The cold in her fingers he can, and he kisses her knuckles as he rubs his palms against her skin, generating heat.

She is just looking at him, eyes dark. If she's cried, he can't tell. If she wants to, he can't tell. If she wants him to do it for her, he can't tell.

"Bill," she says, and then seems not to know what else to say, because she just repeats it as if his name is an anchor.

Maybe she doesn't even know what she wants to herself, he thinks. Fulfill a propechy, die with meaning, bleed with purpose? Or live a little lost, like they all are?

She embraced prophecies once before, he remembers. Probably she will again.

He doesn't want to comfort the Dying Leader, but he does kiss Laura until her lips are no longer cold and her hands feel alive clutching his.

II

 _A basestar, about time_

She loves him.

That isn't a surprise. They've both fallen into it, moment by moment, sufficiently mutual that he knew enough of his own feelings would be echoed in her.

But knowledge isn't quite acknowledgement and now she's given him that. He has too, because waiting alone in a raptor is hard to explain with anything but love.

He isn't going to try to.

"Laura," he says, her name an acknowledgement as much as anything.

She is still smiling when she steps out of the embrace, moisture around her eyes. They're so bright he had to kiss one eyelid and wants to again, but now she leans forward and kisses him before he can do anything. It's soft, and brief, because she probably has a lot to tell him and he knows he certainly has. There's the Fleet to catch up to, a Cylon basestar to fit into everything and Earth, Earth to find.

They've both just found something unexpected on the way and she laughs when he doesn't let her pull back, feeling the sound of it so delightful against his own lips.

He doesn't want to live without her, he told Lee.

He does want to live with her.

II

 _The President's temporary quarters, one morning_

He awakes before her, her steady breath gradually easing him from sleep to something not quite alert. Her fingers have curled around his arm during the night, and he watches her grip. It's soft, but he knows she doesn't let go.

He hasn't either, holding her close the night through. Sleeping with her in more than one way, and her face is no less beautiful sleeping than it was last night, flushed and bright with desire.

She called out his name, he remembers, her back an arch against his hands. He whispered hers until he didn't have the breath for it anymore.

Laura and Bill, living a little. He doesn't think it will quite last, not in the part of him that is decades of military service. Not the part knowing Laura, who doesn't let go.

He can still enjoy it while it lasts and waits for her to wake too, as if he has all the time in the world.

II

 _Death, after_

"I don't know what this is," he tells her after he's stopped kissing her, her lips swollen and still inches from his. Her hair seems all around his face, falling freely as he still hasn't let her down on her feet again.

"Am I dreaming?" he asks. It doesn't feel like it. It feels like awake a hundred times over, as if life was the dream and he has woken up now. "Am I projecting? Am I dead? Is this some sort of frakking heaven out of scriptures?"

"Does it matter, Bill?" she asks, her nose brushing against his softly.

"It matters if it ends."

Her breath is warm as it slides across his skin and her mouth moves to his ear, as if she's about to tell a secret.

"We've lived a little," she whispers. "This is just after."

FIN


End file.
